INTRODUCTION

The constitution of India is known as the law of the land and all the laws made are to be made or to exist being consistent with the Constitution of India. There are times when one law overlaps the other and creates a confusion in the minds of the people and it is where the courts step in and clarify the same.

The same situation can be seen with the existence of Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 and Article 129 and 215 of the Constitution of India and various High Courts and the Hon’ble Supreme Court have clarified the same time and again. This article talks about the conflict between section 20 of the contempt of courts act, 1971 and article 125 and 219 of the constitution of India, 1950.

WHAT IS A CONTEMPT?

The contempt of Court is a legal violation committed by an individual by disobeying a judge or otherwise disrupting the legal process in the Courtroom.[1]  The Contempt of Courts Act does not define the contempt itself but talks about the existence of two types of contempt: civil contempt and criminal contempt.

CIVIL CONTEMPT: Willful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order. Writ or other process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a Court.[2]

CRIMINAL CONTEMPT: the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which—

• Scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
• Prejudices, or interferes or tends to prejudice or interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
• Interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course if any judicial proceeding, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner;[3]